AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They took her life, took her from me, so I shall take theirs.
“You arenotto kill anyone,” he said, his voice taking on the edge of our celestial tones. His warning was clear without saying too much—if he can’t reason with me, he will stop me by force.
The problem was, we both knew if it came down to a physical confrontation, he’d lose.
Because he was still playing by the rules, rules I had thrown away when God denied me the act of revenge and murder which was rightly mine to undertake and allowed my innocent love to die.
“Fuck you.”
“Those men will die when God wills it.”
“I’m going to kill them.” I growled as I closed the gap between us again. “I fuckingwill it.”Our wings came almost together, enclosing us in a cave of near darkness, the rain unable to break through the wall of feathers as we stared hard at each other.
“You’ll fall,” Zaqiel said, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought there was regret or possibly sadness in his tone. But Zaqiel was on the side of right, and if I fell, he’d see it as what wasright.Action and consequence. “He’ll take your wings.”
“I don’t care anymore.”
There was something in his eyes then, beyond the glowing white, and it was real pain.
“Emrick—” his voice was strained.
Shoving past him, I folded my wings against my back, and they disappeared from sight as I shouldered him. When I reached the street, I turned, taking what was likely to be the last look at my brother I’d ever have. His eyes had returned to deep blue, and he stood there, drenched from the rain but not feeling the cold, his wings folded away as he watched me make my final choice as an angel before I’d be condemned to fall.
“One day you’ll understand…” I said. “And on that day, come find me, and we’ll be brothers again.”
It was done, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fucking glad about it.
But the consequences happened much faster than I had anticipated, and no matter how much I paraded in front of Zaqiel, beating my chest and claiming I didn’t care and was ready to accept whatever befell me, when it happened, it hurt.
Never have I felt pain like it.
Waking up in an alleyway, it was still raining, and it was a wonder I managed to sleep at all, given the cold and wet. It was more likely that I passed out rather than had a nice, relaxing nap. After killing those men, and after the street had run red with their blood and it was washed down the drain in the downpour, I felt weak. Like something was taken from inside me, a black hole opening up in my soul and widening until it sucked all the energy from me. The rush I had felt when I wrapped my fingers around their necks, snapping them with a satisfying crack or simply tearing them apart with strength beyond their understanding, I felt invigorated at the time. But afterward, I was an empty shell. I had managed to stumble a few blocks before collapsing behind a dumpster, and while I slept, the rain had washed the blood from my hands.
Mostly.
When I woke, the searing hot pain stabbed through every nerve on my back, and a part of me was missing. Did I lose consciousness as some small mercy to not bear witness to their removal? To feel the blade of wrath slice down my back, severing my wings from me and condemning me to one of the fallen. I was spared that anguish, but the residual pain was just as bad, and now there were a thousand smaller shots stabbing into nerves where they had been.
My wings were gone.
I had not anticipated the emptiness of losing that part of myself. While I howled against the wind and rain, and my cries echoed onto the street as darkness ebbed around me, underneath the pain was anger at the injustice. Having done the right thing and removed those men from a world where they didn’t deserve to live, I was the one to be forever punished.
So be it.
Pushing myself to my feet, I growled as my clothes rubbed against the raw and fresh scars on my back. Despite my curiosity and the part of my mind that justhad to knowwhat the damage looked like, I didn’t want to see it. I never wanted to look upon those scars and be reminded of God’s betrayal. He protects demons instead of angels, the out-of-control animals from below rather than the loyal who do his good work, and his precious humans, no matter how cruel they are.
The sunrise was at least an hour off, but that was okay, I had a decent walk ahead of me. I needed to get to her, but she never wanted to live in the city with her sister and had found a place in the suburbs. It didn’t bother me before, but now I wonder if maybe she had convinced her sister, Emily, to leave the city, Emily would still be alive.
Without my wings, it would take hours to reach her on foot.
What did it matter? I had nowhere else to be.
There were no thoughts running through my mind as I walked, no pondering of the greater meaning of life or stopping to smell the roses—no such desire was left in me. There was only pain and anger, the latter masking the former, and I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore, so I let the anger become a part of me to fill the void where my wings had been until it was all I had.
It was still early morning when I reached her home and pushed open the small white gate before I crossed the generous front yard, ducking under the tree branches dripping cool water from the now-cleared rain.
Knocking, I waited, and when she answered the door, her hair was messy and she was wearing a pink bathrobe, which she clutched closer to her chest when she saw me.
“Emrick,” she said sleepily. “What are you doing here?”
